Kashmir shut for 88th consecutive day

Srinagar, Oct 4 (IANS) The Kashmir Valley remained shut for the 88th consecutive day on Tuesday and life remained paralyzed as authorities made heavy deployments of security forces here and other areas.

Officials said sufficient deployments of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and state police were made here as well as all district headquarters to maintain peace.

Separatists had called for protests by women across the valley on Tuesday.

Women were asked to assemble and occupy city squares, market places and traffic inter-sections to register peaceful protests.

Separatists had been issuing weekly protest calendars calling for shutdowns, rallies and marches since July 9, a day after top militant Burhan Wani was killed in a gunfight with the security forces.

Schools, colleges and universities remain closed in the valley for the last 88 days.

Main markets, public transport and other businesses were also largely shut during this period.

Train services between the valley and Bannihal town in the Jammu region were also suspended for the 88th day.

Security was beefed up for Jammu and Kashmir Education Minister, Naeem Akhtar, who was warned by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit to refrain from opening the educational institutions after he tried to do so.

Around 90 people have died and over 12,000 injured during the ongoing unrest in the valley — worst after the 2010 violence in Kashmir.

In the last one week, however, the intensity of violence during protests decreased.

More than 300 youths were rounded up by the security forces whom they call — “habitual stone-pelters, who incite mobs to violence and then watch from the flanks”.